With a great-grandmother's killers still on the loose, a Knox County judge could offer grieving relatives little Friday except the words of her own mother.

"It's going to be all right," Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz told the family of Nola Atkins. "Take that with you."

Leibowitz's comments came after she doled out the maximum penalty of six years behind bars for Frank Gary Cooper, the lookout in Atkins' March 2008 killing.

Cooper, 24, is the only one of three people identified in the fatal break-in to confess. A jury earlier this year found Cooper, who has an IQ of 57, not guilty as a principal in the felony murder and aggravated burglary case.

Knoxville Police Department Investigator Patty Tipton believes she knows the identities of the two men who kicked in Atkins' door and killed her. She has been unable to amass enough evidence to charge them.

Atkins was shot in the face with a shotgun after intruders barged into her home in search of a million-dollar jackpot that neighborhood gossip falsely claimed she won in a numbers game.

Assistant District Attorney General TaKisha Fitzgerald argued Cooper was a gang member with a history of crime dating back to age 13. She urged Leibowitz to impose the maximum sentence.

Cooper faced a maximum of two years in prison on the homicide conviction and four years on the facilitation of burglary conviction.